The US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced today that it will ban imports of Mexican shrimp and other seafood caught in the habitat of the critically endangered vaquita porpoise.
On March 11, 2016, just after midnight, a National Airlines 747 landed at Fort Worth’s Alliance Airport with 17 African elephants from Swaziland. These elephants are victims of a controversial international scheme involving three US zoos—the Dallas Zoo, Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, and Wichita’s Sedgwick County Zoo; the Swaziland government; Big Game Parks (BGP), a nonprofit trust in Swaziland; and the US government.
Federal lawmakers have introduced legislation to prevent the establishment of horse slaughter operations within the US, end the current export of American horses for slaughter abroad, and protect the public from consuming toxic horse meat. The Safeguard American Food Exports (SAFE) Act, H.R. 113, was introduced by Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-FL), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Ed Royce (R-CA), and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM).
On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement (SHARE) Act of 2015 (H.R. 2406)—a sweeping pro-trophy hunting and trapping bill—by a largely partisan vote of 242 to 161. The Obama administration released a statement strongly opposing H.R. 2406 earlier that same week.
On the opening day of the 111th Congress, Representative Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU), chairwoman of the House Natural Resources Committee's Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans, reintroduced the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 81).
Yesterday, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) introduced legislation to end the use of brutal traps on furbearing animals within federal wildlife refuges. H.R. 3710, the Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, which was submitted with a total of 35 original co-sponsors, helps to restore the original intent of the National Wildlife Refuge System by placing a ban on the use of cruel body-gripping traps within the refuge system.
Today, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) introduced legislation to end the use of brutal traps on furbearing animals within federal wildlife refuges. The Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, H.R. 2657, is intended to help to restore the original intent of the National Wildlife Refuge System by placing a ban on the use of cruel body-gripping traps on these public lands.
Once again, Congress has voiced its opposition to horse slaughter. The US House of Representatives today approved an amendment to the 2008 Agriculture Appropriations bill that will temporarily bring horse slaughter to a halt by stripping funds from the federally required inspection of slaughter-bound horses. Without the inspections, the slaughter cannot proceed.
The US House Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearing today on “Improving Safety and Transparency in America’s Food and Drugs.”
Yesterday, President Obama announced that the United States will not impose targeted trade sanctions to address Iceland’s commercial whaling, although the President has revised and repackaged a series of diplomatic measures that US officials will be obligated to implement.
The Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), has filed suit against the US Navy over its plans to build a $100 million Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR) 50 miles east of the Jacksonville, Florida coast. The plans involve the construction of a 500 square nautical mile range and the operation of over 400 Navy war game exercises every year.
When the U.s. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published the country’s first national standards for organic production and established the National Organic Program (NOP) in 2000, provisions dealing with the treatment of the animals being raised were all but absent. From the beginning, the organic regulations required that animals be given freedom of movement and access to the outdoors, fresh air and direct sunlight.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced a proposed rule to ban the import and export of threatened Banggai cardinalfish, following a 2021 petition from conservation groups.
Today, the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Cetacean Society International, and Earth Island Institute filed a petition with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to designate the Sakhalin Bay-Amur River stock of beluga whales in the Sea of Okhotsk as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). Subject to intense levels of historical hunting, these belugas have yet to recover and face serious ongoing threats, most notably from annual live captures for public display.
The Philadelphia Police Department's Mounted Patrol Unit was joined at its headquarters by US Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) and The Humane Society of the United States to garner public support for federal legislation to stop the inhumane killing of American horses for human consumption.
US Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) are urging the US Department of Agriculture to fulfill its obligation to protect the public from misleading food labels, citing a recent Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) report indicating that 85% of analyzed animal welfare claims on meat and poultry products lacked adequate substantiation.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 4366) signed into law Saturday includes several important victories for animals, but falls short in a number of key areas, such as enforcement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Horse Protection Act (HPA).
At the request of the Soliciter General, the Supreme Court will review a case from the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia, PA, which overturned a conviction involving so-called “crush videos” and called the law
In a settlement filed in court Friday, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) agreed to determine whether Mexico has failed to stop illegal fishing and trade of totoaba that is driving the vaquita porpoise’s extinction.
In March of this year, as noted on page 2, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) on the Makah Tribe’s proposed hunt of gray whales—the first step toward issuing a waiver under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) to allow the hunt under US law. In its comments to NMFS, AWI asserts that the DEIS is inadequate, and that the MMPA waiver should not be granted.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) has unfortunately approved a request by the United States for an aboriginal subsistence whaling (ASW) quota for the Makah Tribe of Northwest Washington State.
Thirty members of Congress sent a bipartisan letter to the US Department of Agriculture in February with pointed questions about the department’s effort to counter the widespread use of ventilation shutdown plus heat (VSD+) to kill tens of million
